Dinesh Karthik returns to the Indian team for T20Is vs South Africa

For the forthcoming five-match T20I series against South Africa where the Proteas will be travelling to the Indian shores, Dinesh Karthik will once again don the India blues after a massively impressive season for RCB in IPL 2022.

KL Rahul will be taking point for the leadership responsibilities for a squad that will also be welcoming back Hardik Pandya. There will be new faces too that would include Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh. Senior pros Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah have been rested keeping in the mind the upcoming England series and the T20 World Cup.

Dinesh Karthik earned himself a much-awaited call-up to the national team and this will be his first international call-up since 2019. A season of 287 runs at a strike rate of 191.33 and playing the perfect finisher for the Challengers, has forced the selectors to turn to him for national duty.

Despite Hardik’s intermittent appearances for the Indian squad of late, yet, his exploits in the IPL made the selectors consider their options. Another Royal Challenger who was called up to the squad is their ace medium-fast bowler, Harshal Patel who can prove to be a crucial bowling option in the death overs.

India will be a part of 5 T20Is against South Africa with the first game being played on 9th June that will be unfolding at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.

Indian T20 squad: KL Rahul (Capt), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(VC) (wk), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Y Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, R Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik